Traditionally water resources and reservoirs, such as water delivered to users through distribution systems, or reservoir such as swimming pools, spas, hot tubs, water gardens, and the like, have been treated with manual addition of chemicals such as chlorine and bromine for sanitization and disinfection purposes. Moreover, a number of other manufactured chemicals are typically added to counteract the effects of disinfecting chemicals, such as chlorine and bromine, on various water parameters including pH and alkalinity.
Additionally, a number of chemicals are typically added to water to stabilize or supplement chlorine and bromine and improve water quality, including algaecides, stabilizers, and clarifiers. The purchase, transportation, handling, water testing, and manual addition of these chemicals, especially for residential recreational facilities such as swimming pools, presented significant problems to owners and operators of these facilities. These problems include: the bather safety concerns arising from the addition of high dosages of these artificially manufactured chemicals, the high operating costs of chemicals required to effectively maintain water quality, and excessive time and effort required to balance and control various water parameters.
A number of electrical devices and systems have been used to reduce the impacts of these problems. These systems and devices include salt chlorination systems, ultra-violet disinfection systems, ozone generation systems, metallic ionization systems, or a combination of these systems and devices working together. The difficult installation of these systems, requiring electrical and plumbing expertise is a limiting factor for their usage. Moreover, operation of some of these systems, for example salt chlorination or metallic ionization systems, are usually carried out manually with some difficulty, requiring the user to test and manually adjust production rates to effectively sanitize water. Therefore, a device capable of reducing the installation and operation effort in such systems is desired.
Conventionally, electrical devices and systems described above utilize an electrical control panel installed and connected to 115 VAC or 240 VAC power supply, such as a power plug. The control panel regulates the electrical power, and in some cases converts the AC current to DC current, and supplies a separate electrical treatment device with electrical power using electrical wires. The electrical treatment device is usually installed in-line or at the end of a water flow path. Other systems have attempted to create self-powered devices, reducing the installation difficulty.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,508,929, issued Jan. 21, 2003, to R. M. Mercer discloses one possible solution for outdoor environments exposed to sufficient sunlight. A floating salt housing unit produces chlorine utilizing solar power. The system is described as requiring an outdoor environment and direct exposure to sufficient sunlight that is not always available. Regardless, because of the high energy requirements of electrolytic processes, such as salt chlorination, solar power solutions might not be sufficient or practical for complete and reliable sanitation of a large reservoir such as a swimming pool.
For some applications and treatment systems, a hydro-generation system has been used. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,927,501, issued Aug. 9, 2005 to Baarman et al., discloses a self-powered liquid treatment system including a housing that may be mounted at the end of a faucet. The housing including a filter, an ultra-violet light source, and a hydro-generator. The system disclosed is designed for installation at the end of a faucet, such that the water free flows out of the end of the device. The system's mechanical design, especially the mechanical design of the hydro-generator system, is not practical or ideal for in-line installations, where it is desirable for the system to have a small cylindrical profile and fit in-line in the existing flow path without external extruded features and housings for the electrical generator or rotatable member. Additionally, in in-line system applications with high flow rates, it is not ideal, due to the excessive pressure drop caused by the change in the direction of the flow as is required by the mechanical design of the system disclosed. Moreover, the control method provided is designed for an ultra-violet system and is not beneficial when chemical substances such as chlorine or metallic ions are produced for sanitization.